Road Trip

Natalie RandallFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-8-2017

Place item was collected

Logan, Utah in the informant's apartment

Informant

Hugh Johnson

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Hugh and I have only been friends for a few months, but have quickly become very good friends. He is a student attending Utah State University and is in the Air Force. He has a very easy going personality and will talk to anyone, but he is also very straightforward and sometimes doesn’t know how much information people want. He grew up in Orem, Utah and his family still resides there. He has seven older siblings and two step siblings and is very active in his family’s lives. He loves spending time with his nieces and nephews.

Context

We had this interview when we were both in between doing things, so it was slightly rushed, but not so rushed that things were skipped. The tradition he told is one that excludes his roommate, so we had to talk in his room while his roommate was in the kitchen cooking. The television was on outside the room, and that noise covered up what he was saying so he didn’t feel the need to whisper. The story he shared is one that we try to keep just between us and our other friend involved, so he tried to get through telling it quickly, just on the off chance that someone were to walk in.

Text

I = informant, N = Natalie (me)

I = [chuckles a bit] Ok, Tuesday night drive is...Tuesday night drive is a tradition wherein me, myself excuse me, and two of my friends, you included, Natalie and Drap-Dallin [he started to say the wrong name and corrected himself] go and drive to Idaho, here from Logan, and it ends up being about an hour drive. Just to the Idaho border and we cross the border, turn around and come back. This drive includes us griping, venting, whatever we want to call it, talking about life, our grievances that we don’t like or do like! Um, it’s just a chat, it’s an hour long chat and the excuse is to drive to Idaho just because, but what it really is is a chat about life. Wherein we go deeper than a normal light conversation.

N = Ok so, in this drive um who drives primarily?

I = We swap every week. Dallin drove this week, you’re driving next week, and I’m the week after that.

N = When did this originate?

I = It originated about four weeks ago, about a month ago, a little over a month ago and we were hanging out and we got talkin’ about inside and we weren’t done hangin out, but we didn’t have an excuse, any of excuse, maybe not an excuse, we didn’t have any...yeah excuse to keep hanging out ‘cause we all had homework and tests to study for so we decided, oh let’s go to Idaho, ‘cause Dallin said he’s never been to Idaho. And so we drove to Idaho and we talked about life and we decided this was a good night so we wanted to do it again and we decided it’s a weekly tradition from there on. It’s super awesome. And that’s all I have to say about that [he said this last sentence like Forest Gump, he quotes movies a lot in dialogue].

Texture

When he was telling me about our tradition, he seemed excited to talk about it. This is clearly something he enjoys and even though it’s supposed to be a secret, he seemed eager to share it. He wasn’t whispering, but there were times where he had to adjust his volume depending on how noisy it was outside of the room, because he didn’t want others to hear what he was saying. It is important to note that this particular story is the informant’s way of relieving stress and getting through life. He had a fun attitude about him when he was talking about it.

Course

Introduction to Folklore

Instructor

Lynne S. McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G1: Groups/Social Customs

EAD Number

3.1.8.25

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